Design and testing of mobile library websites: Best practices in creating mobile library applications

John Paul Anbu K. and Sanjay Kataria

Introduction

´ Desktop websites Vs. Mobile websites

´ Web page on a mobile device often results in a poor or unusable experience

´  limited screen size

´ Subject matter of the page may require considerable scrolling

´  Input problems

´ Bandwidth and cost

Library Home Page desktop vs Mobile 3

www.library.american.edu

Mobile Library Websites – Where to Start

´ User inputs

´ interviews

´ Page statistics of desktop website visits

´ Mobile using habits of the users

´ Mobile application vs. mobile website

Mobile Library Websites – The content

´ Basic design recommendations of the mobile web best practices report

´ Optimized output of mobile website design

´ Platform independent website design

´ Device independent website design

´ Optimize the screen size

´ Easy menu button selection

Separate Mobile URL and redirecting the users

´  Separate website Vs separate mobile app

´  Responsive web design (bend, flex and expand)

´  Parallel websites for desktop and mobile users

´  Server based PHP to detect device type – “UserAgent string”

´  Screen size optimization

´ Different navigation menus for desktop and handheld

´  Limited graphics

´  Separate Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) for specific devices to adjust without compromising the content (Google autoconvert)

Simple Design

´ Concern for Data charges ´ Single column design for mobile websites (to avoid

automatic zooming all the way to fit the screen)

´ Minimal navigation

´  Input difficulties (Virtual keyboards)

´ Absolute sizes instead of percentage sizes

´ Avoid Flashy desktop technologies

´ Unsupported file types (flash, java scripts, applets, frames, pop-ups, scrolling)

´ Avoiding fancy items (to minimum)

Mobile Library Websites – Testing and Validating

´ Preview options

´ Standards and best practices

´ mobileOk checker

´ Random testing of checking

´ W3C best practices guidelines

Useful mobile website testing tools : MobiReady

Useful mobile website testing tools : Gomez

Dotmobi emulator

CrossBrowser Testing

Other useful mobile website testing tools

´ Opera mini simulator

´ Adobe Device Central CS5

´ iPad peek

´ Iphoney

´ W3C mobileOK Checker

´ GoMoMeter

The starting point – user survey

´ Survey location ´ JIIT University, Noida, India

´ Survey Population ´ Doctoral

´ Post-graduate (M.Tech. and MBA)

´ Undergraduate programs (B.Tech.)

´ Staff

´ Resources ´ Learning Resource Centre (LRC)

´ 27000 books and more then 14000, e-journals

The survey - Population

Survey Population 229 100% ´ Faculty 22 9% ´ Other Staff 4 2% ´ Students 205 89%

9% 2%

89%

Survey distribution

Faculty

Staff

Student

Resource on mobile phone

´ Yes 218 95%

´ No 11 5%

94%

6%

Need for Mobile library

Yes •No

Separate mobile library website for MobilePhones

Yes 216 94%

No 14 6%

94%

6%

Seperate Mobile website

Yes •No

Type of Mobile phone ownership

´  iOS (Iphones) 19 ´ Android Phone 148 ´ Windows mobile phones 20 ´ Other internet enabled phones 31 ´ Mobile phone without internet 11

8%

65%

9%

13% 5%

Type of Mobile phone ownership

•iOS (Iphones)

•Android Phone

•Windows mobile phones

•Other internet enabled mobile phones

•Mobile phone without internet facility

Frequency of internet access through mobile phones

´ Frequently 188 83% ´ Rarely 30 13% ´ Never 9 4%

83%

13% 4%

Using internet through mobile

Frequently Rarely Never

Internet access of mobile phones

´ Campus wi-fi 51 23% ´ Wi-fi hotspots 44 20% ´ 2G/3G datapacks 129 58% Internet Access

Campus wi-fi Wi-fi hotspots 2G/3G datapacks

Mobile website preferences

´ More text and links 33 15% ´ More Graphics and texts 28 12% ´ Balanced 164 73%

15%

12%

73%

Mobile content

More text and links More Graphics and texts Balanced 

links preferred in the mobile library website

´ OPAC (Book search facility) 188 (231) 81% ´ E-Resource database link 150 (231) 65% ´  Instructions on how to access databases 84 (231) 36% ´ Library tours 57 (231) 25% ´ Circulation related information 145 (231) 63% ´ Library rules 46 (231) 20%

Results and Discussion

´ Type of mobile phones owned ´ Willingness to accept mobile solution

´ Most users are familiar with using internet through mobile phones

´ Separate website for library website

´ Most users use datapack and pay for using (content creation)

´ Balance content but preference is text

´ OPAC as the important link followed by E-Resources and Circulation

Conclusion

´ Decision to create a parallel website for mobile users (94% users wanted a new and separate website)

´ With minimum graphics and using most of the recommendations of minimum design recommendations (most users use pay data packs)

´ Provide OPAC, E-Resources and Circulation as main links

´ Create a separate app for OPAC